


Bat Meets Cat

by Merfilly



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:55:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1248358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A kidnapping, a case, and a thief... Kate's going to have to get used to these</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bat Meets Cat

It started with a kidnapping. And even though Renee had warned Kate that this case was going to get messy, Kate plunged on in. There was a child in danger, and she wasn't going to rest until she found the child and brought them to safety.

"You're going to regret this," Renee told her, before melting into the shadows to go her own way.

`~`~`~`~`

There was a strangling, constricting sensation almost on the heels of hearing the lash of a whip, and then Kate was struggling for balance, for the leverage she needed to ease the choking sensation.

"You're not the right Bat-floozy," came a purring voice. "I'll give you one warning. This is going down _my_ way, not yours, not the GCPD way, and sure as hell not the way of the sleazeball that did this," the voice added in a vicious, hard tone.

Kate twisted, managed to get some slack, and coughed her reply. "Same side."

The whip loosened, then fell away, and Kate turned to see her assailant. The woman was known to most who lived in Gotham. Kate just didn't know what angle this case took for East End's notorious thief and protector.

"It's personal, tootsie, so don't get in my way," Catwoman cautioned.

"If we share resources..."

Catwoman scoffed. "Told you, not doing this one by the rule book." She swung her whip out and before Kate could intercept, the woman was gone.

`~`~`~`~`

There were nights when Kate hated that Renee wasn't always on tap for the information. Maybe, just maybe, Renee might have known the piece of information to bring the scumbag in alive by getting there sooner.

Then again, Renee might have held back long enough for the passion play to take its own life anyway. She had her own string of questionable calls.

The thing was, once Kate surveyed the scene, it certainly appeared that the perpetrator had gotten overzealous in pursuing whomever had come after the child and fouled themselves into falling down the stairs. The broken neck had least been fatal, rather than crippling, a mercy that Kate wasn't sure she appreciated. People who targeted kids deserved to suffer.

The redhead had a feeling she knew just who it had been that got there ahead of her, and now she had a new target. That child was to be reunited with her parents, not left in the dubious care of a woman that walked outside all of the rules.

`~`~`~`~`

Kate found them on the roof of a church in East End, of all places. The child was wrapped snugly in a blanket, tucked in against Catwoman's chest, presenting an incongruous picture to say the least.

"She deserves so much better," Catwoman said at the landing of the other woman on the roof. "She shouldn't have to pay for being part of this city, part of the legacy we've left in our wake."

"Let me return her to her parents," Kate offered, not liking the sound of this speech. Was the woman murderous? Was she planning on killing the child as some warped mercy?

"No, I'll do that." Catwoman smiled at the innocent head on her shoulder. "I just had to hold her, had to know she was safe. But she can't stay with me. I'll be content with my kitties, and leave the kiddy with her family."

No, the thief wasn't going over some psychopathic deep-end. Good. Kate still wondered about her. Protecting and nurturing wasn't that high on this woman's list of things to do, at least not by common rumor.

"Her parents are worried," Kate pointed out. "News will break soon that the abductor is dead."

"I know." She quirked a new expression, a colder one, at that. "Let them worry a little more, so they protect her better in the future." Catwoman rose, slowly, and then started walking toward the edge of the roof, again prompting a frisson of fear in Kate.

"You could let me get the child to the authorities, avoid upsetting her by running the gauntlet they've got around her parents' house."

Catwoman looked over her shoulder, and then shook her head. "She'll feed on the adrenaline. She's her mother's daughter after all."

Faster than should have been possible, the whip swung out, and then Catwoman was disappearing into the city with her burden, leaving Kate little choice but to follow or go await the end destination.

Following, she discovered, only got her lost in the sprawl of inner city decay, and she hoped she was in time to see the delivery as she finally just headed toward the parents' house.

`~`~`~`~`

Kate stripped off her cowl as she settled into the bolt hole she used on this side of town, fluffing out her hair. The girl was safe, the perp was dead, and she had failed to lay eyes on the thief again. Apparently Catwoman had put the girl to bed somehow, and the first they had known of the child's return had been the little thing crying for a cup of juice. Kate was content with that, as she headed to get a much needed shower.

"You ought to invest in better locks, or pay more attention to being followed," greeted her on exit from the long, steamy shower. Kate froze by the door of the bathroom, caught with her face bare to the world, and a known troublemaker in her living room. "Oh don't play coy with me. I've got my goggles down, and you left your pretty cowl in here. Fair's fair."

"Not quite that simple," Kate said.

"Sure it is. If you think I don't know who Batman and his little birds are, you're sorely mistaken."

"You're not going to go away?"

"No. You took too much interest in my little errands this week."

Kate counted to ten, then came into the living room, hoping that in her sweats and oversize shirt she was not as recognizably herself as she felt like she was. She found Catwoman, mask and goggles off, just as promised, on her couch, lounging very much as if she owned the piece of furniture.

"So this is a social call?" Kate asked, taking up residence in the recliner.

"That depends, tootsie."

"On?"

Kate was slightly disconcerted by how quickly that casual recline became a leaning perch of intending pounce. She found Catwoman's face mere inches from her own over the open space between recliner and couch.

"On just why you took a vested interest in that case."

Kate ran a hand over her still damp hair, and then shook her head at the thief. "It was a missing child case with a chance at resolution. All signs indicated it had the potential to be a Lindbergh, but several clues suggested the girl was still alive."

Catwoman leaned back at that answer, looking vaguely satisfied.

Kate curled her feet up in the chair, acting for all the world like she was perfectly comfortable being bare-faced to the woman on her couch. "Why were you?" she retaliated bluntly.

Catwoman made a face at her. "You honestly don't know?" She gave a little laugh at that. "I suppose you're not quite tied into the all-knowing Oracle's network. Shame; she's really a tasty one to work with sometimes."

Kate was not going to let herself be nettled by that comment. She had Renee. And other sources. She did not need to be tied directly into the network of the Batfamily.

Catwoman stretched where she reclined, then gave an indolent shrug. "Maybe I was just tetchy over the perp cutting through my territory."

Kate flashed on that image atop the church, and then narrowed her gaze in on the thief. "The child means something to you."

"Oooh, you're the brilliant detective now, are you?" Catwoman asked, her tone a little snippy. "Of course she is. And now that you've stumbled into the middle of it, I need to know more about you."

"What? Why..."

"Because I will not have any Bat interfering with her having the life she deserves!" Catwoman's eyes flashed and she was back in that aggressive posture on the couch, the one that made Kate's throat hurt in memory of the whip lashed around it.

"I don't have any desire to get involved in her life unless she gets targeted by one of this city's lunatics. Any more than I would for any other child in this city," Kate told her. Catwoman looked her over, searching, and slowly settled back.

"Keep it that way." She sighed softly. "Been cozy, tootsie, but I really ought to be curling up in my own kitty bed about now," she purred, standing and pulling her mask up.

Kate, bemused by the whole visit, shook her head. "So, do I get to call you 'kitten' since you're intent on calling me that?" she asked as she stood to see her out and make sure the damn alarms were on this time.

It was in the middle of thinking about the passcode for the alarm that she realized Catwoman was in her space, and then she was being kissed. Her eyes went wide, and she started to pull away almost instantly, and found herself looking at a smirking Catwoman fixing the goggles into place.

"I'd say you might earn the right, tootsie, but you're going to have to learn to kiss better than _he_ did, or why should I bother?" With that, and Kate nearly speechless, Catwoman wandered right on out of the apartment.

It was almost an hour later before she called Renee, asking for her to call back, and knowing that Renee was somehow going to find all of this entirely too humorous.


End file.
